US urged to face “hard truths” of shifting operating environment
“When the environment changes, strategies that worked in one environment are not going to work in the next,” Boston College professor Chris Glass told delegates of the AIEA conference 2026.
“The two dimensions of that framework are predictability and malleability” – the former having been uprooted by federal political volatility and the latter referring to the amount of agency institutions have to exercise and adapt in that environment, Glass explained.
He advocated for the vital need of different sector messaging and altered policies, as leaders explored how to navigate political uncertainty, rising global competition, demographic challenges and new technologies facing the US sector.
“There’s a lot of hope embedded in data. We’re used to telling the big macroeconomic story of international students’ $44 billion contribution to the American economy, but those kinds of arguments tend to have less resonance right now,” said Glass.
“When I’ve been on Capitol Hill, the arguments that make a difference are arguments grounded in real relationships, real employers and real communities”, showing the value of international education at home as well as abroad, he explained.
Glass urged colleagues to tell the “micro stories” about international students, to make better use of data such as the OPT Observatory’s more than 5.5m student records, and to use evidence to counter factually inaccurate, emotionally charged narratives.
What’s more, he cautioned stakeholders from overlooking the “hard truths” facing the sector, highlighting issues relating to national security, corporate espionage, the STEM gender imbalance and high graduate unemployment rates, to name a few.
“Because I think you win arguments by having evidence and you gain credibility by talking to policymakers about where reform is needed, rather than taking an absolute decision,” Glass explained.
Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), highlighted the vital need for kinship in an increasingly distrustful and siloed operating environment.
“Because in this post-truth era – in which controlling the narrative is more important than the facts – it doesn’t matter how much data you produce if we are not trusted messengers.”
“It’s only been by creating a sense of trust and kinship among community members that we can demonstrate that global learning is a public good. It’s not a private commodity reserved for those who can afford to study abroad,” said Pasquerella.
In this post-truth era – in which controlling the narrative is more important than the facts – it doesn’t matter how much data you produce if we are not trusted messengers
Lynn Pasquerella, AAC&U
Elsewhere in the conference, speakers doubled down on the importance of better internationalisation data across universities, increasingly needed to advocate within institutions as well as outwardly to industry and government.
“We don’t have true benchmarks for financial results of international strategies or the data that you could use for advocating this,” Ben Waxman, CEO of Intead marketing agency told delegates, adding the field lacked the outcomes data to support universities’ investment decisions.
To this end, AIEA and Intead announced a new two-year study into institutions’ internationalisation models, offering comparative outcomes data on enrolments, study abroad and partnerships that university leaders can use to further their strategies. They aim to have 100 institutions on board by August 2026.
And yet, Pasquerella warned international strategies will only survive if fundamental principles of US higher education are upheld, highlighting the “unprecedented governmental overreach into every aspect of university and college operations” under Trump’s second term.
“Unless we can preserve academic freedom – which is under attack, not only in the US, but globally – we will not be able to do the work ahead of us.”
“Mobility doesn’t matter at all if the infrastructure and foundation of the learning we are trying to promote doesn’t exist,” she told the conference.
Despite sector data gaps, Pasquerella highlighted a recent AAC&U survey showing US employers overwhelmingly support global learning, as Glass emphasised the importance of the global labour market in understanding shifting student flows.
“To not understand what’s happening in the context of global geopolitical labour market transformations is to miss the really important storyline… Internationally, more students than ever study abroad because they’re interested in entering labour markets.”
“Other countries besides the US are developing talent strategies while the US has a very incoherent labour market strategy,” said Glass, highlighting the number one field for OPT participation is computer science, which is also the field set to be most disrupted by the labour market.
“That will change what we teach. It will change what it’s like to begin a career. It’s really something that we need to focus on in international education and think about the implications for what this means for mobility.”
In the context of heightened US visa restrictions, central to these labour market dynamics are the possibilities created by transnational education and the promise of “international education without passports”, said QS executive director of the Americas, Ben Webb.
Emphasising the “heart and soul” of higher education was to serve students to solve career gaps and boost skills attainment, Webb asked delegates: “Is your institution willing and brave enough to adjust… to meet the market where the market is and not trying to drag it into what we want it to be?”.
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